“ rassad ” (an extra allowance to cover the increased
cost of their food). Coolies are paid at the rate of four
annas a day and ponies eight annas. The latter, where
possible, are preferable, carrying more in proportion
(often a maund; a coolie only carries twenty-five to
thirty seers, a seer being 2 lbs.), and giving less trouble
about food and warmth. On the whole, if no very
expensive expeditions are carried out, and rests are
made in each place, it is possible to live quite well for
seventy or eighty rupees a month. Shooting is an
expensive amusement, as licences are now costly
things and good shikaris can get their own terms, and
if “ doongas ” are not sufficiently luxurious the houseboats
will be found to be highly rented. The really
ruinous plan is to remain in Srinagar, where all day
long the visitor is assailed by the cunning merchants
with beguiling manners, who always bring the most
tempting wares ever seen, and by a finely simulated
indifference to pay, and an accurate knowledge—purchased
beforehand from the servants—of the exact
amount of the master’s income, lead the poor victim
gently into temptation, and fill the boat with such
ramparts of pretty things that finally escape is only
purchased by a few present orders and some vaguely
generous hints as to future requirements, then salaams
are exchanged, and a few hurried words thrown to the
“ retinue” show their share in the gains over the
transaction.
As will be seen, it is a life of small things played
out amid gigantic surroundings, this existence in the
happy valley hidden away from the outer world behind
the great mountain barriers. Shuttered-in boats float
by on the river, camps of unknown folk pass one on the
road, occasionally greetings are exchanged with folk
whom we knew not before and shall not meet again.
I t is a restful, unfettered, unique life amid all the
beauties of a country decorated by Nature in her most
varied manner, a land that is like a dream when one is
in it, that haunts one with the reality of an obsession
when its snowy peaks and flower-filled valleys have been
exchanged for grey skies and grimy towns.